38th ICAO Assembly

The world's governments met in Montreal in September 2013 for the 38th ICAO Assembly. This event, taking place every three years, brings together national aviation experts to discuss various issues of importance to the world's civil aviation. One of the most high-profile topics at the 2013 Assembly was climate change and the need to develop a global market-based measure to deal with aviation's climate change impact.

The aviation industry, through ATAG, developed a joint, global, position on market-based measures for the 38th ICAO Assembly. A copy of the position paper can be downloaded below and there are more links to useful documents at the bottom of the page.

KEY POINTS

The aviation industry recommended that, as part of a comprehensive approach to address air transport’s climate impacts, a single global market-based measure (MBM) be agreed. This should be seen as part of a broader package of measures including new technology, more efficient operations and better use of infrastructure.

The industry believes that a simple carbon offsetting scheme would be the quickest to implement, the easiest to administer and the most cost-efficient.

The industry invited governments meeting at the 38th ICAO Assembly in September 2013 to:

Agree a roadmap for development of a single global MBM for aviation to be implemented from 2020 that can be adopted at ICAO’s next Assembly in 2016.

Agree the principles for development of a global MBM, including:

the goal of carbon-neutral growth from 2020;

that aviation emissions should only be accounted for once;

that a global MBM should take account of different types of operator activity.

Ask ICAO to develop, in the meantime, several milestones that could help build the foundation for a single global MBM, including:

an ICAO standard for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions from aviation;

a mechanism to define the quality of verified offset types that could be used in a global MBM for aviation.